"Yes," he answered, staring at her.
"Oh, Peter!" she said again and began to cry--a whimpering noise and her
hands shaking so that the candle rocked in its stick.
"Well," he said more softly, "you'd better put that candle down."
She put it on the table and then stood beside him, crying pitifully,
jerking out little sentences--"I can't bear it.... I don't know what to
do.... I can't bear it."
He got up from his chair and made her sit down on it and then he stood
by her and waited until she should recover a little. He felt suddenly
strangely tender towards her; she was his mother's sister, she had known
his mother all her life and perhaps in her weak silly way she had loved
her.
"No, aunt, don't cry.... It will be all right. I too am very unhappy. I
have missed so much. If I had only known earlier--"
The poor woman flung little distracted glances at the old man asleep on the
other side of the fire-place--
"Oh, dear, I had to come and talk to some one.... I was so frightened
upstairs. Your father's there with your mother. He sits looking at her ...
and she was always so quiet and good and never did him any harm or indeed
any one ... and now he sits looking at her--but she's happy now--he will be
coming downstairs at any moment and I am afraid of what he'll do if he sees
me talking to you like this. But I feel as though I must talk a little .
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